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Chapter 4. The Good Friday of Russian Monasticism, 1928–1934
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The Good Friday of Russian Monasticism, 1928–1934 had reached another turning point. The previous decade had witnessed two revolutions, a change from a monarchy to an experimental form of governance based upon communist ideals, but strongly influenced by the experience of civil war and famine. The New Economic Policy (NEP) had been designed to rebuild the country and to restore faith in the ruling government. By , however, many party officials believed that NEP had outlived its usefulness. The end of NEP signaled a turn toward a more authoritarian form of government that would have lasting consequences politically, socially, and economically. The end of the New Economic Policy also signaled the end of the party’s relatively temperate attitude toward religion. As discussed earlier, the twelfth and thirteenth party congresses displayed a more tolerant policy toward religion in general and the Orthodox Church in particular. In there were still differences within the party between the hard-and soft-liners about how to approach the question of religion. Stalin had previously allied himself with the moderates, deploring the excesses of the antireligious propaganda. However, by the beginning of he had consolidated power and was poised to pursue a more aggressive policy toward the Church. He foreshadowed this firmer policy earlier in , when he stated publicly that “the Party cannot be neutral in its relations toward religion, and it will conduct antireligious propaganda against it.” More ominously, he went on to say that the party could not oversee antireligious work until the “counterrevolutionary clergy” were all liquidated .1 The New Economic Policy, despite having achieved some notable successes , was proving problematic in many ways. Within the party there were objections over the future path of NEP. Should it be a short-term solution, or should it be the basis for the nation’s long-term economic plan? If the latter, then the party leaders would have to sacrifice the ideal of building a socialist society, since in many ways NEP was contradictory to the ideology of socialism. Aside from dogmatic disagreements over NEP, serious concerns about the economy remained. Although the agricultural sector recovered rapidly from the effects of the civil war and the famine, the industrial sphere lagged behind. The party needed to do something to bridge the disparity between these two areas. There was also the problem of uneven grain distribution between urban and rural areas. The problem was not that the harvest had been bad, but rather that the peasants were reluctant to turn over their produce to the state.2 The party could have redressed this imbalance by using intelligent fiscal and market policies, but its dogmatic commitment to Marxist theory precluded taking that path. The result was the dual policy of collectivization and industrialization. These two methods would dominate the next decade and have a lasting effect on the nation. Perhaps the most important change involved the government’s role in implementing these policies. Government planning became the third part of the Soviet trinity that was to totally change the relationship between state and society. In the words of Moshe Levin, the state “did more than just ‘guiding’: it substituted itself for society, to become the sole initiator of action and controller of all important spheres of life.”3 The Great Turn, – The chief purposes of collectivization were to bring the peasants under state control, ensure a steady supply of grain to the cities and the army, and put an end to petit-bourgeois attitudes in the countryside. A secondary aim was to provide a market for industrialization.4 The Russian countryside was still unmechanized and largely inefficient. More modern machinery would guarantee better harvests and cheaper produce. These goals would be achieved by consolidating the small, private peasant farms into large collective entities. Nobody would have any private property; homes, livestock, and equipment would all be held in common. Although collective farms had existed during the civil war, participation was strictly voluntary. As examined earlier, many monasteries made use of this trend and became very successful communes. The state-run farms, however, su- ffered from inefficiency and lack of skilled farmers. The Soviets felt that the solution to this imbalance lay in totally collectivizing all of the farms. + [3.237.178.126] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 20:26 GMT) Peasants would be either persuaded or forced to join these new enterprises . Collectivization had a social side as well. By bringing the peasant class under state control, it...